Optical fiber connectors are used in a variety of telecommunications applications to connect one optical fiber to another, or to connect an optical fiber to a telecommunications device. Certain optical fiber connectors (e.g., the UniCam® fiber optic connector made by Corning Cable Systems LLC) include a short (e.g., 15 mm to 20 mm) section of optical fiber called a stub fiber that interfaces with a field optical fiber within the connector. When a connector is operably connected (mated) to another connector, the stub fiber resides between the field fiber of its own connector and the stub fiber of the mating connector.
Presently, a single-mode stub fiber is used in an optical fiber connector intended to connect to single mode fibers, and a multi-mode stub fiber is used in an optical fiber connector intended to connect to multimode optical fibers. Furthermore, as multimode optical fibers can have a core diameter of 50 microns or 62.5 microns, a conventional multimode connector has a correspondingly sized multimode stub fiber. This means that many different types of connectors are required for use across the possible types of fiber connections that can be made in the field. This adds substantial cost and inconvenience to the connection process.